Enquête Mobilité résidentielle hors des frontières luxembourgeoises (EVALUX)
Survey of residential mobility outside the Luxemburg borders (EVALUX)
This was a survey conducted by post in spring 2008, by the LISER (formerly CEPS/INSTEAD) in partnership with the Europa Forum. The field of study comprised all employed members of the working population who were Luxembourg residents but had gone to live in a neighbouring country between 2001 and 2007, while continuing to work in the Grand Duchy. Four selection criteria were used, i.e. people who had:
(i) moved from Luxembourg to a German, Belgian or French area of the Greater Region,
(ii) moved between 2001 and 2007,
(iii) been employed in the Grand Duchy both before and after the move,
(iv) lived in the host country for at least six months.
These criteria eventually resulted in the selection of a parent population of 7,715 people. Overall, the average age and therefore the average income were slightly lower than those of Luxembourg's resident working population, although this does not mean that the phenomenon can be described as residential relegation (Carpentier, 2010).
To analyse the reference population and establish a contact base, both of which were essential in order to ensure that the survey was conducted properly, data was used from the files of Luxembourg's Social Security Authority (Inspection Générale de la Sécurité Sociale/IGSS). This longitudinal administrative data base contains data on everyone covered by Luxembourg's social security scheme, and is the only one to contain, with a certain level of temporal depth, both residents of Luxembourg and cross-border workers from Germany, Belgium and France. As the data base contains individual information only, questions about families and any changes developing in them (separation, setting up home together, births, etc.) when the move took place, were added to the questionnaire.
Of the 7,715 people contacted, the response rate of 25% resulted in a final sample comprising 1,939 respondents, for whom, in addition to the usual sociodemographic data, there was data concerning their various addresses, as well as a certain number of places where everyday activities were carried out, both before and after moving away from Luxembourg. Specifically, ten types of activity were addressed: place of work, spouse's place of work, food shopping, doctor's appointments, sports activities, visits to friends, visits to members of the family, hairdressing appointments, restaurants and cinema trips. For each type of everyday activity, respondents were asked to choose the place where the said activity most often took place. In order to reduce the amount of time taken to complete the questionnaire, which, let us not forget, was self-administered, no questions were asked about, for example, the route taken, times, frequency, and transport links. Thus the aim was not to collect information on a typical day's travel, but to specify, based on their habitual activities, the places where these new « suburban cross-border workers » conducted their everyday lives (and the journeys that this involved).